by Lee Bond
Ferrocrete dust, smoke, and Ariel's indignant cries filled the room.
Agnethea put herself back on track and flashed a triumphant smile at her would be killers. Face flush wi' excitement, heart hammering in her chest, the Golem realized she were having a grand old time.
In her hidden ear, the disembodied voice continued on wi' offering the sun, moon and the stars themselves, if only she did all she could to keep Ariel safe.
The Golem stepped forth, and became a blur once more, this time aimed properly at the window, this time certain she'd make it through.
Ariel hissed in amazement as she clambered her way through the sea of arms and legs holding her down. It was as they’d assumed. Their soon-to-be ex-prisoner was some kind of juggernaut, immune to powerful weapons as she was the most advanced medical equipment money and science could produce. Another furious round of recoilless rifle-fire peppered the Arcadian as she prepared to ram her way through the window.
The CEO of BishopCo hissed once more, this time in venomous anger as –against all expectations- Agnethea spun in mid-air at the very last second to provide her ex-captors with a saucy two-fingered salute, a wry smile and an even wryer wink.
Then she were through the ferroglass window as though nothing stood between her and freedom.
When the godawful noise of her men firing useless rounds against the wall and through the freshly made aperture, Ariel rose unsteadily to her feet, ignoring all the damage in favor of wondering aloud, “What in the hell did she mean, ‘Unreal’ Universe? And who the hell is the most dangerous man in it? What in the hell is going on?”
***
Skoomy Max and Arlel Wrek had been following the weird, crying woman in the white dress for some time now, alternating between an itch to find out if she was as pale and luminous underneath all those clothes and wondering what in the hell was wrong with her; from the moment they’d spied her crawling from beneath a partition separating the ‘good’ part of this particular sector of this particular Stack from the ‘bad’ part –where people like Skoomy and Arlel hung about, waiting to do bad things to the right people, their target had been acting … weird.
They assumed part of it had to be the Stack blackout. Everyone, everywhere was acting up, running around like maniacs and fools, getting themselves up to the kind of trouble you got up to when the lights went out, but this felt different, somehow.
Skoomy Max had lived his whole life in Stack 17 of Zanzibar City, and in that time, there’d never once been a blackout this big or this wide, or this long, for that matter, so naturally a woman in white, wandering idly through alleys and streets suddenly blossoming with violence and mischief would be … off.
Somehow.
Arlel licked his lips and watched the woman in white as she came upon another group of scavs, and the same thing happened again as had every other time so far; the scavs –ordinary folk for the most part, trying to eke out a life in a place that wasn’t necessarily conducive to easy living, which therefore called for a certain … fluidity of morals- centered first on the brilliant white dress –or at least those parts not muddied up from her under-the-wall escape- and angled towards her face.
For their lady in white, she surely was a value-rich target, right? You couldn't dismiss someone like that out of hand.
The scavs got within striking distance, took one long look at the woman then … ran. Ran like hell, fast as kids trying to outrun a black-out drunk dad looking to teach important life lessons. Ran like they had warrants, and she was a cop. Or worse, like she was one of them Enforcers you always heard rumors about.
“She ain’t a fucking Enforcer, Arlel, you goddamn asshole idiot.” Skoomy Max took a hit off his pipe and held the acrid vapors in his lungs until they itched and ached and threatened to catch fire. When he couldn’t hold it in no more, he let the smoke free with a wretched, rattling wheezing cough that trailed off into a high-pitched kind of … hrrggghhh.
The shit was going to be the end of him, he knew it. Knew it, didn't care, couldn't care, and wouldn’t care. That was his mantra.
Arlel Wrek palmed another pill and eyeballed the scavs fleeing over the dilapidated roof belonging to an aircar service stop that was –as far as they knew- a front for the Runaround Boys, a proper Stackgang who did proper thieving and cons. He wished those idiots luck, because if a Runaround was up there keeping the spot safe, they’d better have it in them to run for days.
Didn’t matter the Stack was probably doomed. Runaround Boys didn't let anything get away from them.
“Well, how d’you know?” Arlel demanded a bit giddily as GonnaBye crept through his nervous system. “She could be.”
“First off,” Skoomy motioned for them to hurry up and the two of them crabwalked as quickly as they could until they were behind a burnt out wreck of a car –no doubt the results of the Runarounds getting up to some serious no good before the cameras set high above all their heads came back on-, “first off, she’s not wearing any armor. When I was kid I seent a picture, and he was dressed in armor head to toe. That dress don’t look like no armor.”
Arlel pursed his lips. “M-maybe she’s not wearing it.” Thinking was hard with GonnaBye in you. All you wanted to do was run around, faster and faster until the lights went out. Well, the lights were already out, weren’t they? All anyone was seeing by right now were the temporary balloon lamps that automatically launched when it got too dark for anyone this far down in the Stack to see.
That, and by firelight, of course.
So many pretty fires, dotting this Stacklevel. They were like … like … flies made of fire. Fliefires? Whatever. It was beautiful out.
Arlel giggled.
“Welllll … then if she’s not wearing her armor, she’s just a person.” Skoomy nodded justifiably at Arlel’s look of moony-eyed surprise. “But she isn’t an Enforcer either way. Wanna know what I think?”
Arlel scampered closer still, because their girl was staring queerly straight up into the sky above her head as if was seeing something she’d never expected to see in her entire life.
Skoomy followed behind, smacking him on the back of the head when they stopped by an overturned ground truck. Both Arlel and Skoomy took a quick moment to see if there was anything worthwhile in the back, frowning when they saw only a few spoiled apples.
Shame. Grocery trucks were usually a good score. Runaround Boys must've already ripped it clean.
The woman in white turned her head their way, so the two of them hunkered down until they were certain she wouldn’t be able to see them. Eyeing her warily –not forgetting that she’d somehow sent two squads of scavengers running just by looking at them- they didn’t relax until she craned her head back upwards.
“As I was saying before that shit in your system got you running like a fuckin' goof,” Skoomy smacked Arlel in the back of the head again, for good measure, “I know she’s not an Enforcer because she’s an escaped project. You know what’s on the other side of the wall she climbed under?”
Arlel, who’d only ‘moved’ to this level of 17 a few weeks ago, could barely find his way back to where he slept every night, let alone discuss the joggraphy of the place. “Not really. A brighter side, is all I heard.”
“’A brighter side’. Yes. On the other side of that thick wall that’s got guns on the tops and all that is a brighter side, though nothing like what’s higher up, but… yeah. Brighter. There’s Conglomerate labs on that side, and restaurants with better food, and where the vegetables aren’t all spoiled and everyone’s clean. Cleaner. They got money in the banks and roofs over their heads, too, but it’s the labs, Arlel Wrek, it’s the labs, which is why I started following her in the first place.”
“Huh?” Arlel wanted to run. His legs ached with the need.
“She’s an escaped experiment, you fucking drugged out assclamp.” Skoomy whispered angrily. “And that means she’s worth money. All we need to do is…”
Arlel started nodding like his head was on a spring, hi
s eyes wide, drug-riddled brain already spending the vast fortune they’d get for returning an escaped project to an actual Conglomerate! Oh, they’d be rich beyond their wildest dreams! “All we gotta do is catch her! I knew there was a reason I started hanging out with you.”
“Now,” Skoomy whispered conspiratorially, turning his attention back to the white woman they’d been following, “all we gotta do is figger out h … where’d she go?”
The Lady of the Weeping Eye, once known as Mirabelle and perhaps known by that name again once more in the far future, grabbed the two fools who’d been pacing her for the last hour each by the scruff of their necks. She could feel the griminess of their skin beneath her alabaster palms and shivered.
This world was so unclean.
Dirtier and more foul than the worst that the Dark Iron King had ever perpetuated ‘neath his miserable Dome. E’en gearheads and wardogs and all the other manner of wretched filth as lived in Ickford under Agnethea’s reign were a king or queen in comparison to this lot. The grease had sunk into their very souls, and because of it, she ached to lash out at any who came near.
Luckily, her mind was full of Book, burning high and bright in her mind.
Luckily, her damaged flesh kept fools and idiots from pressing her good humor, else she’d break her vow of non-violence, a vow she’d made to her new lord and master, King N’Chalez, a man who abhorred the violence he was called to with every rising sun and every falling moon.
She would do him honor by remaining clear of it. In this way, she would prove she was worthy of Book.
Worthy of the unnamed, unknowable task that waited for her, there, in unvisited future.
The two grim scallywags were kicking and screaming and howling and promising all manner of promises if she would but let them go, but she would not.
She could not.
Not yet, anyways. The Lady carried the two men with her to the center of the crossroads and looked upwards as far as the eye could see. The daunting nature of this new world she’d been brought to was just that, daunting, yet … it didn’t bother her.
Not as much as she might’ve imagined. Everything above her was just another kind of Dome, and because the Dome had been a mystery until the moment it’d fallen, so too would all above her remain a mystery.
“Tell me.” The Lady said softly, heavily accented Arcadian tones slicing through the din swift and sure as a knife, “This hole in the world above us goes all the way up, yes? To where the most powerful and rich live? I could imagine no other way of it being. Certainly not the reverse, with the kings and queens of this realm living ‘neath your feet. No noble would e'er allow serf to stomp atop their heads, I know this for true.”
It took a moment for Arlel and Skoomy to follow the woman’s strange, lilting accent, but they quickly pieced together what she was saying and nodded so quickly and furiously it was embarrassing.
“Y-y-yeah. Yes. Yes.” Skoomy replied abashedly. “All the way up. I wouldn’t go that way though. Even with the power out, there’s guards. Soldiers. Mercenaries. Killer machines of all kinds. They’ll protect what’s theirs no matter what.”
Arlel shimmied this way and that, his neck feeling like it was going to break. He wanted to say something about the woman’s hideously disgusting face, with it’s dripping flesh and gleaming bone, but every time he tried to find the words, GonnaBye had them racing off into the darkest parts of his mind.
At least he knew why the other scavs had run away when they’d gotten close. “This woman is an Enforcer. I fucking told you.”
The Lady ignored the struggles. “I don’t want to go up. I want to go down. Is there a way down like this thing as goes up?”
It took Skoomy another few seconds to catch up with what the woman was saying. “I … yes. Huge service elevators connect the different levels of each Stack, but with the power out, you can’t get in them and you def…definitely can’t get down. That’s the first thing they stop.”
The Lady turned her bad side to the talkative scallywag and watched his expression turn from fear and terror to disgust and revulsion. “Where is the nearest … ellyvator?”
Half the woman in white’s face was a shredded mess of dripping liquids and festering skin!
Skoomy felt a hot bubble of barf rising in his gut but he clenched down on it as best he could. Something told him the way the woman was just holding two full grown men like they weighed nothing at all suggested that she might very well break them in half if her dress got any dirtier.
Somehow, for her, he knew it’d be like smashing bugs on the pavement.
Skoomy licked his lips and counted to ten. “Yes… y-y-yes there is. One. Just … just down … down the road. There a bit.” He pointed lamely to the east.
The Lady followed the man’s shivering, shuddering hand. There, not far off in the distance, she espied a large, boxlike structure. She described it to the talkative one as best she could, finishing with, “Is this the place, sirrah? And it will take me down?”
“Yes, down to the next level, and the one be-below that one. You’ll need to find others if you want to go further. Th … they're … staggered."”
The Lady smiled bitterly at that. “The Lords and Ladies do like to keep their subjects moving about, do they not? Well, you scallywags, I thank you for your news and information. It has earned you your lives this night. But I caution you, do not follow me more, else I might find cause to rip your spines from your backsides and beat you until you are bloody. I do recall the sound of it to be quite pleasing to my ears.”
To drive the point home, The Lady allowed a queer gleam to enter the ravaged side of her face. Both lads shrieked and fell faint right there on the spot. The Lady, not wishing to leave two men who –though they’d meant her harm of some sort- had been so helpful to the whimsy of the other madmen who roamed the darkened streets of this mad city, carried them over to the fallen construct they’d hidden behind and tucked them safely in the back end.
Then she began hurrying on her way towards the … ellyvator.
Book burned bright in her mind, never moving, always just there.
But the others, they moved. Moved too quickly for her liking.
The Beast Awakens
Nurse Aldicott barely looked up from her handheld scanner as the door opened, only marginally interested in who might be coming in; with the state of the man in the burn unit containment bed being what it was, there was every chance it could be one of a hundred interested parties curious to see how a man so badly burned could be clinging so desperately to life.
Besides all that, the data streaming from the equipment lodged in Guard Darren Freoli was far too fascinating to look away.
“Magnificent.”
Of all the people who’d come through the doors to gaze upon the ruined flesh of the man who’d survived such a horrific, life-altering event, not one of them had dared used a word like 'magnificent'.
Awful, yes. Terrible, absolutely.
Most generally looked on in teary-eyed commiseration before fleeing, but never magnificent. The man was nearly cooked all the way through, yet somehow clung to life. Should he manage to survive, life as he knew it was over, forever. Even with the best equipment and treatments available, Tenerek was still a fourth class world. Darren Freoli would be scarred for life, a shambling horror compared to what he'd been.
There was nothing magnificent here. Only sorrow and damnation. Aldicott believed firmly that the wretch should be allowed to die, to find his place in the heavens, but everyone from the Police Commissioner to the entire medical community was pushing to keep him at death's door for as long as possible.
It was revolting.
Without bothering to look up from her charts, Aldicott gave vent to her frustrations. “It’s not magnificent, you unthinking bastard, it’s awful. This man is in an obscene amount of pain, even with the drugs we give him. He’s … you … you shouldn’t … you can’t be in here! This area is for medical personnel only!”
Nurse Precious Aldicott finally looked at the short, balding man, a war of conflicting emotions battling it out in her mind and heart. Now that she'd finally confronted the visitor, she knew very well who he was.
Irrespective of his influence and authority, regardless of his figurative place in those very same heavens she'd only just thought about, the 'visitor' was violating near about every single rule the hospital had. Even having left him to his own devices for a few minutes was enough to cost her her job.
That being said, there was something deeply exciting about meeting Jerry Seinfeld face to face.
Jerry smiled graciously at the nurse. His voice betrayed no hurt feelings, even if he was the most powerful man on the planet. “Are you one of the faithful, Precious?"
Precious went to ask how he knew who she was, clutching obsessively to the symbol of her new faith cunningly hidden behind her identification. Of course he knew who she was. He probably knew the names of everyone in the hospital. Just as likely, Steve or Richie or even both men were standing outside, reducing this visitation to a private one through sheer religious influence alone.
“I… I …” Precious stammered, then, feeling like an idiot, nodded simply, face burning bright with embarrassment.
A faint smile flickered across Jerry’s face. In the beginning, when he’d been new to the faith himself, he’d felt much the same as Nurse Precious Aldicott herself felt that very minute, though for him, it’d been in direct response to the respect paid, and not mortifying embarrassment.
He reached out and placed a gentle hand on her trembling forearm, saying, “It’s all right, Nurse Aldicott. It can be a difficult thing, being in my presence. And naturally, your concern over poor Darren Freoli prompted you to think of his best interests over all else. That is admirable."
Precious opened her mouth again to say something, but her mind went blank. Jerry Seinfeld knew her name. Probably knew everything about her.
